1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a mobile information terminal, and more particularly, to a mobile information terminal which is driven by power supplied from a power source.
2. Background Art
Recently, there is known a mobile phone which automatically calls a predetermined telephone number in the event of an emergency. For example, Japanese Patent No. 3667087 discloses a method of controlling a portable telephone terminal provided with a radio section which communicates with a base station via a radio circuit, a speaker, and an input section, wherein when there is an input indicating an emergency to the input section, an emergency warning sound is issued from the speaker, and also a predetermined telephone number is automatically dialed a predetermined time after the input indicating the emergency, or the predetermined telephone number is automatically dialed if a calling operation is performed before the predetermined time passes from the input indicating the emergency, and the emergency warning sound is stopped once the line is connected.
A mobile phone, however, is mounted with a power source such as a battery and driven by the power supplied from the battery. Thus, it cannot be driven if the charged level of the battery is lowered or the battery is removed therefrom. Even if the mobile phone is connected to a battery charger or a battery charged with adequate power is mounted to the mobile phone afterwards, the mobile phone is reset. As such, in the mobile phone disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3667087, after the input indicating the emergency is received, if the battery level is lowered or the battery is removed from the mobile phone before a call automatically dialed is established, it becomes no longer possible to connect the line at that point. Thereafter, even if a battery charger for charging the battery is connected to or a battery charged with adequate power is mounted to the mobile phone, in order to connect the line, the input indicating the emergency needs to be made to the mobile phone again.
Further, with the control method disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3667087, in the event that there is an incoming call before automatic dialing, the user needs to answer the call, hindering automatic dialing while the ringing tone is produced. Further, in the event that there is an input indicating the emergency while the line is connected, automatic dialing cannot be made because the line is busy.
Furthermore, with the control method disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3667087, when a line is connected, the emergency warning sound is stopped, in which case it is no longer possible to let the surrounding people know that the state of emergency is continuing. On the other hand, if the line is connected with the emergency warning sound not stopped, the emergency warning sound would be output in a large volume from a speaker of the telephone on the other party, thereby surprising the person on the other end.
Japanese Patent No. 2919388 discloses a radio telephone set which includes automatic calling means for transmitting/receiving call information to and from a base station connected to a public network to make a call with a subscriber in the public network, and emergency message automatic transmission means. With an emergency contact key as a combination of one or more keys provided in the radio telephone set being defined by software, when the owner of the radio telephone set depresses the emergency contact key, a prescribed emergency contact number registered in advance is dialed by the automatic calling means repeatedly for a prescribed number of times at regular intervals until the emergency contact place answers. If there is no answer even if the number of times of recalling reaches the prescribed number of times, the speaker provided in the radio telephone set is continuously rang until the owner of the telephone set performs a stop operation, whereas when the answer of the emergency contact place is detected, connection of the reception signal to the receiver of the radio telephone set is blocked, and automatic transmission of a pre-registered emergency message to the emergency contact place is repeated by the emergency message automatic transmission means until the emergency contact place performs an end-call operation, and when the end-call operation is detected, the automatic transmission of the emergency message is stopped, and connection of the reception signal to the receiver is recovered to attain a standby state.
However, because the microphone is ON during reproduction of the emergency message, for example when a crime prevention buzzer is ringing, the emergency message would be deafened by the buzzer, hindering transmission of the emergency message to the other party.